Energy

Luc Vandaele

Returned from our conference in Lisbon I have a lot of new energy and ideas to start the 4th quarter of this year. We had more people attending the event than any in the previous 3 years, as I don’t have the final figures yet, it may even be we had the best event in the past 10 years. If it is not in number of visitors, it certainly was in experience according to most people I spoke, and no, I didn’t ask specifically, they were so enthusiastic they spontaneously told me.

During the opening session I was very happy to see how many first time attendees were present. Young blood is always good for the health of an organization and it certainly shows Db2 is hot. Hopefully some of them will become IDUG volunteers in the coming years. The EMEA Conference Planning Committee is looking for volunteers to help prepare IDUG EMEA 2018. If you happen to be interested just drop Mateja, the chair person for 2018, an e-mail expressing your interest and she will be very happy to answer your questions or convince you to join (mateja.jankovic8@gmail.com).

I’m still looking for a volunteer to help us change our website so that it addresses more the needs of our members and to help build the facilities for starting a Spanish community for developers that use Db2. It allows you to get in contact with a lot of our teams and increase your network. The posting can be found at http://www.idug.org/page/volunteer-vacancies. You will have to login as a member to be able to see it, or simply drop me an e-mail if that is more convenient.

My colleagues will probably blog or write more about the conference, however there is a last thing I want to highlight. There were many more people interested in the Data Tech Summit that came from the Db2 Technical conference then we thought they would. The room was most of the time filled and people were standing in the back. In case you weren’t between them and would have liked to be, don’t regret too much, you can always come to DTS in Silicon Valley (http://www.idug.org/p/cm/ld/fid=1343) or attend it online from behind your desk.

In the planning meetings with the IDUG leadership we talked about several initiatives to try and support developers more than IDUG did in the past. We have an agreement to add more volunteers to the content team so they can deliver articles, blogs …specifically aimed to developers. As always the content team will determine the most valuable topics that are not too adjacent from Db2. If you want to contribute you might become a member as well, just send an e-mail expressing your interest to kurt.struyf@lone-star.be, he is the king of content, leading the team.

With the same intend we are promoting a road show with theme “Development Simplified” that starts very soon. We don’t know how many sessions will be organized in the future or where they will be scheduled next, but for now 6 of them are planned. Here is an introduction:

<< Don’t you wish DBAs and application developers spoke the same language? Let’s make it happen! The IBM team is kicking off a series of app dev workshops in the U.S. with selected Db2 Regional User Groups. Attend a workshop near you and bring a developer friend! If you don’t find your city, make a suggestion for the next tour. Register here: Ibm.biz/db2tour >>

Last time I wrote that the board is committed to find ways to reduce the cost of non-event administration. Prior to Lisbon we took the time to rethink the way we operate, we did take the time during the board meetings to consolidate the thoughts and as a result we have submitted a request for proposal to formalize how our existing or new partner(s) should assist us in running the organization. Hopefully we can come to an agreement. We did approve our working budget for 2018 and our priority is that the quality of our events keeps on improving and the community keeps on growing. It might be though that if you send inquiries to head quarters that you will have to wait a little bit longer to get a satisfying reply.

Besides discussing progress on all exciting projects we are facing, we also had to talk about the General Data Protection Regulation that gets enforced in Europe starting May 2018. First questions we asked ourselves is whether volunteer organizations are exempted from these regulations, but regrettably, we are not. We went through a list of concerns composed by our website builders and a juristic representative and drafted a list of questions we need to resolve. I’m happy that Iqbal Goralwalla accepted to become our Chief Security Officer to interact between all parties involved and guide us until we are fully compliant.

In this blog I have fired many requests on you; I guess this goes together with maintaining the greatest community between all user groups :)

Don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail in case you have suggestions, remarks or comments. I can be reached at luc.vandaele@idug.org.

I have just returned from our winter board meeting and have some exciting updates to share. First of all, I want to thank my fellow board members for all the energy they have spent, and more important...